Bump in the Road
by TheEmptyOwl
Summary: Jerome and Mara have been waiting for this moment for ages, and now that it's here, will everything be okay, or will there be a not-so-little bump in the road? NOT a one-shot. please review if you want this to be continued. JARA! photo credit: freedigitalphotos .net
1. Chapter 1

Jerome Clarke was excited. He was _beyond_ excited. His wife was just about to give birth to _his_ baby. He had a wife to love and hold and now he'd have baby to love and hold with her.

A mini version of him… or Mara, he didn't yet know what the baby would look like yet obviously and him and Mara had decided to keep the gender a surprise.

He was going to make sure that he was the best dad in the whole world. If he has a son, Jerome would help him prank and teach him his ways. If he has a daughter he will spoil her rotten, like he does to Mara.

Jerome's parents never did that type of thing with him. His father had never taken him fishing, or come to his football tryouts with the other boy's fathers.

His mother didn't even acknowledge him as a being in the household, let alone buy him presents.

However, Jerome's dad had made a difference, he was always there for him now, and he loved Mara as a daughter too. In fact he was outside in the waiting room, waiting for his grandchild to be born.

* * *

Mara Jaffray was scared. She was _beyond_ scared. She was just about to give birth to a baby. A baby. A baby was about to come out of her. That did not seem possible and she was freaking out. How was it going to fit?

She kept trying to think of the positives in this situation. She would have a baby to hold and love, and if the baby were anything like Mara, it would be a very tiny little baby indeed.

But the thought of giving birth kept pushing its way back into Mara's mind. Sure, she had Jerome beside her, holding her hand, calming her down, telling her it was all going to be okay. Although mentally that made the situation seem as though she was just about to take a nap, physically, the situation was quite the same.

She would still be screaming and shrieking for hours on end, she was 45 minutes into labour and she wasn't even 3 cm dilated. She would have to keep up with these contractions for hours still and that _still_ wasn't the worst part of this story. Oh, no.

The worst part was that today wasn't the due date. Today was 2 weeks before the due date. And looking at Jerome, even though he was grinning from ear to ear, Mara had known him long enough to know that there was something in his eyes. A strange darkness. Fear. Fear that the baby might not be ready yet, or that the baby won't make it altogether!

But she couldn't think these things. She had to think of the positives here.

She was going to be a mother

Jerome was going to be a father.

And they'd be one big happy family.

* * *

It had been _thirty-six_ long, long hours, but she had done it. Mara Jaffray was on her very last push and then she'd be a mother.

Jerome was at her side, holding her hand and whispering encouraging words in her ear. And with his other hand was wiping Mara's sweaty face with a hot towel.

"Alright, Hun," Said the nurse to Mara. "Just one more push"

Jerome's concerned face turned into one of absolute delight. He'd been waiting to hear those words for thirty-six hours now. This was it.

Mara looked like she could barely move her fingers, but with all the strength she could muster up, curled her fingers tighter around Jerome's soft hands and pushed with all her might, letting out an agonised grunt in the effort.

There was shuffling as all the nurses gathered round the new born baby and Mara and Jerome heard a _snip_ of the umbilical cord being cut.

Mara collapsed back into the pillow as they took the baby away to be cleaned and Jerome immediately reached up with his hand and stroked her hair, then her cheek.

"Well done, love" he whispered affectionately and kissed her lovingly on the cheek.

"Jerome?" Mara asked, her voice was barely audible, she was too exhausted.

"Yes, love?"

"Why isn't the baby crying?"

She looked up at him with big brown questioning eyes. And then realisation dawned on him as he noticed that the baby was supposed to be crying.

"I'm sure it's nothing, love. Don't worry" He whispered into her ear, but now even he was wondering what was going on. He cast a glance over to where all the nurses were and saw them all frantically moving about, whispering loudly, and if they weren't all whispering at once, Jerome could have heard what was going on.

Suddenly, the nurses began to exit the room and only the midwife was left. She brought the baby in her arms and stood next to Mara on the other side of the bed, opposite to Jerome.

"I really am truly sorry, Mr and Mrs Clarke" She began to say. "I am afraid your daughter didn't make it."

At this point, Mara burst into tears, shaking uncontrollably. Jerome joined her, silently sobbing, and wrapped his arms around the shaking Mara rocking her gently. _Daughter _she had said. He would have had a little girl to spoil rotten.

"I'll let you hold her for a while" the nurse said solemnly. Looking at her face, Jerome could tell that she wasn't sorry. She wasn't sorry at all. Even after Mara had been screaming in agonising pain for _over a day, _she wasn't sorry. She didn't have to be sorry; Jerome knew that, I mean they'd only met yesterday. But if she wasn't sorry, she should have kept it to herself and not lie, or have the decency to lie convincingly.

She handed Mara the baby and Mara cradled them in her now weak hands, placing soft, fragile kisses on her forehead, as if he might break. But she was already broken.

"Why?" Mara asked in between sobs.

"She was too small to make it," The nurse said, her face still the same as before. "Am I correct in assuming the baby is premature?"

Mara gave a helpless nod.

"Hmph. Well, did you have a name picked out?" she asked, taking out her clipboard and pen.

"Lily. Lily Kathryn Clarke" Jerome said, still crying.

* * *

By this time, John and Poppy had both come in and were sitting on the bed with Jerome and Mara who had calmed down and was sleeping now, after much convincing from her husband. She was exhausted but she had refused to rest, she had just cried and cried for Lily.

Mara blinked. Everyone turned their heads to her as she woke up, bit by bit, like a flower blooming.

"Hey" John said. John had liked her ever since he saw her and Jerome in prison, but now he loved her as if she were his own daughter, and she was comfortable with looking at him as a dad, not an annoying father-in-law. Mara's dad had long passed as had her mother and she only had the Clarkes as family now.

Mara didn't speak, just smiled weakly at him and she lay there, not bothering to get up. But she did however turn her head ever so slightly to face Jerome and he smiled at her reassuringly, but it was a half smile. He was just as broken as she was by this loss.

They had been waiting for this not just for 9 months, but for years. They had been looking forward to starting a family 2 years before Mara finally got pregnant, and now, even if they did have another child, the memory of Lily will always surround them. Whether that be a good thing, or a bad thing, Lily is permanently engraved into their hearts.

"So, I'm just asking, but… why exactly did she… pass away?" Poppy tried wording her sentences carefully; she knew that Mara was like a ticking time bomb. Anything said that might trigger her emotions, and she would burst into tears.

The question was aimed at Mara, if not to find out the answer then to get her to say something, but Mara wasn't going to say anything, instead she looked to Jerome for help and he complied.

"They said she was too small"

"Well, I guess we all know that she got something from her mother!" Poppy said.

Mara's eyes widened to the size of saucers and she just kept staring at Poppy. She tried to open her mouth to say something, anything, to defend herself, but nothing came out. Instead she lay there, looking like some sort of wide-eyed goldfish.

Poppy hadn't meant for it to sound like that! She wasn't trying to say that Mara's inherited size killed Lily; she was just trying to say that the baby was like Mara, because Poppy knew that throughout the whole pregnancy, Mara had wanted the baby to have some quality of hers.

Jerome and John both sent her looks. John looked like he was about to faint and his mouth was shaped like a big O.

Jerome on the other hand looked like he was about to kill poppy for what she did. If Mara started blaming herself for this, he didn't know what she'd so. She would probably do something crazy. Even though Mara is usually calm and collected, she had been known on rare occasions to over-react, just a smidgen. And this was nothing if not a rare occasion.

"No, no. Mara, love, you didn't do anything. This isn't your fault… Shhhh…" Jerome soothed. Mara was now wrapped up in his arms, crying softly.

_Was this her fault_, she thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**disclaimer: i do not own house of anubis or any of the characters apart from Lily.**

**I know this is shorter, but I wanted to upload a chapter and didn't have enough time to make it longer. could you also PM me ideas as to what you think should happen in the story, i'm kinda stuck.**

The next day Mara had been discharged from the hospital. She and Jerome were outside their little 'modern' cottage, just about to go inside.

They had been quite content living in a small apartment, even after Mara became pregnant. But when they had gone shopping to buy everything for the new baby, they noticed a small error in their plans. They didn't have a room for the baby.

They had no problem with buying a house. With Jerome as a police officer and Mara as a doctor, they had more than enough money to buy another place.

Even with them being financially stable, Mara and Jerome only had their minds set on buying a larger apartment, one with a spacious room to serve as the baby's nursery, not a house.

But after they had seen this little cottage, they knew they had to have it.

It wasn't really a cottage to be honest. It was a proper house and had an upstairs and all the rest of it, but you'd never expect it to be so large on the inside considering how small and cosy it looked from the outside

It was like stuff out of a fairytale, a small cosy brick cottage, with ivy snaking its way up the side of the walls and slithering past the window panes, and other cottages surrounding it making a wonderful neighbourhood for children to grow up in- which was just what they wanted at the time.

The cottage even had a stream nearby. Well, Jerome and Mara had never actually _seen_ the stream, but on peaceful afternoons the babbling of the water could always be heard and it was like soft soothing music to listen to after a hard stressful day of work. Almost like a lullaby that a baby could fall asleep to.

It was the perfect place for them to raise a family.

* * *

As they entered the house, something seemed odd. It was eerily quiet, as if something were waiting to jump out.

"SURPRISE!"

"Oh, Alfie, shush! You'll wake the baby. I bet anything that it's the most adorable thing you've see –"

Amber stopped talking as Jerome and Mara entered the room, their faces were dull and emotionless. Well, one emotion could be seen and that was surprise. Surprise of what had just happened.

It wasn't everyday you came home to find another couple stowed away in your home, unless you lived in a very odd house. A very odd house indeed.

All the other emotions seemed to be shielded away, covered by 'masks'. This was to be expected from Jerome, but never Mara.

What surprised Amber most, however, was the fact that they had no baby with them, but it couldn't have been a false alarm, Mara's stomach was flat and that baby had to be _somewhere._

"So…? Where's the baby? I wanna see!" Amber cooed, making weird gestures with her hands, as if that's what she would do if the baby were in her arms.

Jerome and Mara shifted uncomfortably in their spots, then looked up gingerly to meet each others eyes, then Mara nodded, signalling for Jerome to speak.

This little action didn't go unnoticed by Alfie and Amber, and they both turned to Jerome expectantly.

First Jerome cleared his throat then began, "The baby…"

Alfie and Amber bobbed their heads closer, urging him to finish.

"…um…" he tried again.

"There is no baby." Mara cried, her voice trembling on the last word.

"No baby? NO BABY? No more 'Lily Kathryn Clarke'? What, did she just disappear?" Amber cried, obviously unable to take a hint.

At this outburst Mara had turned on her heel and ran out of the room and upstairs.

Jerome Stared after her and his foot kept moving, not knowing whether to explain himself, or go find Mara. Figuring that she might need some time alone, Jerome signalled with his hands for them to sit down and then he began from the beginning.

"Well I don't know if you knew, but the baby was-"

"Two weeks and one day premature? Yes of course we know!" Amber sighed

"Um… I don't," Alfie said in confusion. "Someone explain."

"What's not to get, the baby was two weeks and one day premature!" Amber cried impatiently, obviously wanting to get on with what happened.

Jerome had explained the whole story, and Amber was halfway through a box of tissues. Jerome too wanted to cry, badly, but he wasn't going to in front of Amber and Alfie. Crying was something he was only comfortable with doing in front of Mara.

**PM me ideas of what you want to happen! REVIEW! **


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